Out of the Quiver
by moonswirl
Summary: Prelude #23 to ONCE MORE UNTO THE BREACH, coming in July. (See author's note inside) An AU story set across the Arrowverse. In this installment: For five years, Sara Lance was believed dead. When she returned, she had become someone else... something else.


**_A/N #2, PLEASE READ: _**_So some days past I received a review from a guest, leaving me unable to reply, so to them if they should read this, or anyone else for whom the other note below, which has appeared on every one of these prelude stories, has not settled, as the review demanded "_ What's with the weird arrowverse one-shots? Just write a full story." _these stories, along with the ability to start putting awareness that the big story was coming, are set to allow me to share and for any of you so kind as to read to have an establishing of this alternate universe which will be the setting of the 100-day/chapter story **Once More Unto the Breach** which will serve as this year's countdown to the new seasons (for the third year running :)). The prelude stories give space to some needed exposition that would have otherwise clogged the main story and would have needed to be rushed._

 _We are now on to the final preludes, the last of which is to go up on June 30th. After this, the big story is set to premiere **July 15th 2018** , the final chapter to go up on the day the last of the four shows premieres, this year being Legends of Tomorrow, on **October 22nd 2018**._

 _ **A/N:** I was meant to start writing and posting these back in January, however life happened, and progress didn't happen, so now here I am, a little over two months late but finally kicking things off! This coming July, as I've done for the past two summers, I'll be leading a 100-day countdown story set across the Arrowverse (featuring Supergirl, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, and Arrow). I decided to do things a little differently this year. For one thing, the entire 100 days will be a single story spread over 100 days, one chapter to every day. And for another, the more planning I did, I saw the possibility and the need to lay in some ground work in the form of preludes._

 _Twenty-four prelude one-shot stories, six each to the four series (again, it was meant so that each month from January to June would have one of each show, but now… yeah ;)), posted every 5 (or 6) days._

 _The story this will all be leading to, **Once More Unto the Breach** , is an alternate universe story (not another Earth, ha :D), which will soon become evident enough. It's very possible you do not watch all four of the shows, but I highly encourage you to seek out the other preludes, as they will help to fill in this world I'm very excited to share with you guys!_

 _Alright, enough chit chat, let's go! If you have any questions, send them my way and I'll be happy to answer them!_

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 **OUT OF THE QUIVER  
** _Prelude to_ _ONCE MORE UNTO THE BREACH  
_ (23 of 24)

 **Location:**  
 **MAIN EARTH, THE CITY BENEATH THE BREACH**  
 ** _(ARGUS designation)_**

Some days she didn't know what she would have chosen if she'd had the chance… to have stayed and remained as she'd once been, or to still have been thrown on to the new path that had set her on to the change. Both could feel right, and both could feel wrong, and in the end it didn't really matter. Her life would always be what it had been and what it had turned into. She had ended up here, and now she had to live with it.

Her early life was as simple and good as any life could ever be. Her mother and father were good people who loved boundlessly, and when she had been little still, they had shown the levels of this love by bestowing it not only on her but on another little girl they had brought into their home and adopted into the family. And from the day she'd met her, Sara Lance had loved her big sister Laurel. There had been no time of adjustment needed, no. The older girl had walked into their home and immediately was accepted as a most beloved sister, and Sara had cherished her and attended her in what way she might have been needed.

For instance, when she'd discovered, a few years later, how Laurel had both wanted to find her birth parents and already started her search, Sara had needed no more explanation in order to volunteer herself as additional eyes and hands and feet dedicated to the search. Said search could hardly be called productive, and eventually Sara had taken up the initiative – for Laurel's own good – to involve their father into the matter. He was with the police after all, and he could surely have found some trail that they wouldn't. Laurel hadn't taken to the initiative very well, but in the end, it _had_ yielded results, if not the way she'd thought. Their father had already done the research long ago. He'd found her mother and would tell her who she was if she wanted to know. Laurel… hadn't asked for the name, not then, not until a year later. And when they'd heard it, when they'd realized this mystery person they'd been searching for was someone whose name and overall existence they were already aware of… It felt a lot like they'd been digging and digging their way to the bottom of a barrel, and just when they believed they'd made it, they had discovered a false bottom, and many new levels for them to dig through.

Sara had done some of that digging herself, out of the same concern she'd always held toward her sister and her wellbeing. Maybe because the two of them weren't in this for the same reasons, _she_ had gone seeking a different set of answers than Laurel ever did. And when she'd started uncovering certain things, it left her to wonder if maybe their father had kept this secret all these years for a different reason than that which they'd assumed. She hesitated to bring it up with Laurel at all. She'd started off by trying to convince her sister not to get in touch with the woman. They'd been at this long enough that she was well aware of Laurel's hesitations about following through on this reunion, so it shouldn't have been too hard to talk her away from it. Laurel had been confused about this, which was no wonder, Sara realized, after all the time she'd spent helping her find this woman. She wasn't going to explain her reasons, not if she didn't have to.

She wasn't going to say, she wasn't, not unless she found valid reason…

And she did find one.

She never made it home to tell her sister, or anyone else.

As best as she could determine – not at the time but later, much later – someone had knocked her out, drugged her, carried her off through the breach and deposited her on the other Earth. All _she'd_ known at the time was that she'd been on her way home, to find Laurel, to tell her what she'd learned, and then the next thing she knew, she was waking up in some place that looked… that looked… It was so like the place where she'd been before, it had been easy for her to think she hadn't gone anywhere at all, except that she didn't remember when she had gone and sat on this bench. She'd been very groggy though, so that might have explained a thing or two. Before long however, the similarities in her surroundings would only work so far that they helped to highlight just how everything wasn't right, that this wasn't her home. And when she'd left that bench and tried to make her way home, that was when she'd really known… something was very, very wrong. Her home wasn't there; her home was someone else's home.

It would be five years before Sara Lance would step back into the light of Main Earth. The events of those five years were the subject everyone would ask her about after her return, and she understood that much, really, she did. But she couldn't talk about it. She just couldn't. People would generally assume it was just too hard for her to talk about it, and there was some of that, yes. Most of all however, it was that telling anyone about those years away would mean telling them about what she'd made of herself in that time. And that was her own secret, no one else's… no one here.

Never would she mention how she had been on another Earth, that she knew of the existence of another Earth. Let them think she'd been off somewhere on this Earth. Never would she mention how she knew now just how she'd ended up thrown to the Haven Quarter of Breach Earth, that someone had wanted her to disappear, someone who had called on another to carry out the task without knowing the manner of this disposal, someone who worked for her adopted sister's birth mother. _She'd_ found out, some time ago now, and it had been all the motivation she'd needed to find her way home, to get back to her sister, to protect her, and who knew how many others who might have shared her fate.

Well, here was an important thing to know about her return: The day she had set foot on her own Earth again and the day she had revealed her return to her family were not one and the same. The two had been weeks apart. In those weeks, a scandal had erupted, many weeks later removing the prominent head of a company from power, landing her in prison as the daughter she had given up for adoption at birth was raised to take her place. And then, someone had called in a tip in the disappearance of Sara Lance, which had earned them a substantial monetary reward after the lost young woman had been recovered.

The claim to the reward and her discovery had become part of her plan only after she had returned to this Earth, the part she could not have figured out until she had seen what the world had become in her absence. It was the means to an end, and if it also allowed her to pry some money away from the woman who'd been at the heart of her banishment to Breach Earth and put it to good use… That would be worth it.

For all this, the pieces falling into place, to the point where someone would call her father and tell him she had been found, she had to admit there was a part of her that was genuinely scared, her nerves on edge. She was about to be reunited with her family. Her father, her mother, her sister… All that time, being away, the promise that she might someday find them again had been at the heart of her motivation, and now that it was about to happen… How would it go? How would it go? The fear came out of her knowing inside her heart that she was not the same person she'd been the last time they'd seen her, and the person she had turned into… she might be compatible with them anymore.

But then her father had come, and he'd looked at her like someone had just given him back his life, and he'd pulled her into his arms, and she'd held on to him, closing her eyes and granting herself this moment of pretending as though the last five years had never happened. And when her mother had come, she'd cried with her. And Laurel… Laurel she had held on to like her life depended on it.

Settling back into the life she'd left behind had been impossible to do. That life wasn't hers anymore. She had to start over. She'd done that once, after landing on Breach Earth, though this time around it hadn't been nearly as overwhelming and disorienting. This time she knew what she was doing, whether or not she let anyone else see it, all along with only one real goal in mind, and that was to take down those responsible for so much pain, in her life, in her family's life, in strangers' lives. And she'd done that. But then… But then in order to do this, she had needed to ensure that her actions would not touch her loved ones, and for that she had disguised herself. And at some point, much as she'd tried to remain unseen, unknown, people had seen her, this lone, hooded figure. They'd started to write about her, talk about her. They had named her, by the one thing she would leave behind where she passed. They called her the Green Arrow.

So when her original goal had been met, she'd had a choice to make, and two options to choose from. What was she going to do now, with this persona she'd inadvertently created? Would she let her fade away, become little more than a legend… or would she hold on to her and see what else she could do for this city? All this time, the only thing she could think about, the only thing she would allow herself to think about, had been her sister, and the plan. But now…

The old Sara Lance was gone. There was no point trying to get her back. Whatever she tried to build in her place, she could either pretend that the person she'd become could be set aside so easily, or she could embrace her.

So she embraced her. And the Green Arrow continued her campaign across the city.

She had set out in this, never imagining that she would ever involve anyone else into this self-imposed mission. But that had all been years ago now, and today the Green Arrow stepped into the night with allies, partners. Meeting the pair of them, finding in them friendship… kinship… it was already exceeding any of her expectations, but their suiting up to join her…

It had not been her choice for the first of them to ever don a mask, to put herself in the path of danger even as she did. Her name was Cindy Stone, though she'd answer only to Sin. She'd met the teenaged girl in those weeks following her return, before she'd revealed herself to her family. Through Sin she had been able to accomplish a certain number of things she couldn't have done herself, not without risking her exposure back on this side of the breach. The girl had also been made aware of her identity as the Green Arrow. _That_ had not been her intention. At the time, the hooded vigilante had been nothing more than a costume to hide who she was, so when people had started to take notice of her, when they'd give her the name, well there was nothing left to hide from Sin. But Sara trusted her gut in believing Sin would keep her secret. It was through talking to her, along with some private soul searching, that she had decided to keep on taking up the bow she'd brought back from Breach Earth.

Before long, Sin had asked for Sara to train her, so she might go out there with her, as back up. Sara had been adamant, she would not do it. She would gladly call on the girl to help her with a thing here and there, but this… this was too much. She wouldn't do it. It had happened anyway of course, though it had not been her doing. No, that was her other partner.

There had been a point, back on Breach Earth, where she'd known her return to Main Earth would be happening, within days. At the time, she might not have had her whole plan laid out, she couldn't. But despite that, she had _some_ of it laid out, what parts of it she could prepare ahead of time. One thing she'd known, before Sin had ever come into the picture, was that she would need some ally. One had been suggested to her, a friend of a friend, back on her Earth. As sound of an idea as it had been for her to have someone there with her, she hadn't wanted to involve anyone else. Only after her return through the breach she'd figured out she hadn't been left a choice. This friend of a friend had been contacted, told to get in touch with her, to help in what way he could. And that was what he'd done.

When Sara had first met Michael Rory, she hadn't immediately seen what he might become to her. No, in the beginning, she resisted his involvement, not seeing how she could need him. Maybe he had been told she'd push away his help at first, because he didn't let himself get ignored so easily. Eventually, she accepted his help for almost the same reason she'd called on Sin before. There were things she couldn't do without revealing herself, even with the hood and mask, things she wouldn't even send Sin in to do. _He'd_ known who the Green Arrow was, too, and where Sin had wanted to join her and wouldn't be allowed to, Michael had not particularly sought to encourage her actions but ended up sort of getting involved despite himself.

After Sara had refused to train Sin, unbeknownst to her, Michael had been met with the same request and accepted it. When she'd found out what they'd been up to, because of course she'd found out, he had said he figured Sin would go out there whether they showed her how to defend herself or not, so she might as well know what she was doing. And she was a quick learner that girl, as he reported, so much that he'd taken to calling her Speedy.

Discovering all of this, it had just helped to cement the bond between the three of them. They were a team, and they would look after the city together. This secret side to her life had never felt so alive to Sara. To one side, there was Sin, the closest thing to a little sister she'd ever had, and to the other, Michael, her steady right hand, her counsel.

She didn't enjoy keeping secrets from her family, but at this point it had become necessary. For their safety, she told herself, but as true as that was, she also knew it had to do with not showing them who she'd become, not shattering this perception that their old Sara was back with them. _And if Laurel knew I had been responsible for putting her mother in prison… would she forgive me?_ She couldn't think about it. She had done what needed to be done. And now she still had her mission.

Sara and her team had set up shop at the top of an old clock tower. One night, they'd had a visitor.

"Hey! What's that?" Sin had called, frowning as she stood near a window. Sara had turned to see the girl was pointing to something up in the sky. Moving to her side, she'd quickly found what had drawn the girl's attention.

"Go find Michael," she'd told her. "Tell him I'll be on the roof."

She'd gone up on her own until then. There was no danger to it. Their visitor was not an enemy by far. Sara had seen this small ship before, part of a bigger ship; she'd been a passenger on it before, returned to Main Earth on it. As it landed on the clock tower roof, cloaked out of sight, she stood in wait to see which of its crew would emerge. The hatch opened, and she was met by Leonard Snart.

"You've certainly been busy since we last spoke, haven't you?" he spoke as he approached her. They shook hands.

"This is a social call then?" she inquired. Snart shook his head, and then he produced an envelope from inside his coat pocket, holding it out to her. It was addressed to the Green Arrow. Sara looked up to Snart. He mimed zipping across his lips. "Who gave this to you?" she asked.

"Lyla Michaels, a CSI in connection to ARGUS back in Haven Quarter," he informed her. "It was given to her by her ex-husband, who gave express instructions that it be placed in the hands of the Green Arrow. And now it is."

Sara had felt a shiver go up her spine. He hadn't said the name of the woman's ex-husband, but he didn't have to. She'd heard of Lyla before, many a time. From John Diggle, the one they called Deathstroke. He had been the one to train her. He had been the one to make her into the Green Arrow.

THE END

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 _Check out the final prelude, coming June 30th!_


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